Stephen Wright - Meditations in Green

“Doesn’t work that way.”

“Two to one the whole village is a nest of VC.”

“I doubt it,” said Kraft. “Anybody talking?”

“The usual farmer and widow crap.”

Sarge came out with another armful of paper.

Kraft was already down on one knee loading his pack. “I think I’m gonna need help with these documents.”

“Get Schroeder over here,” ordered Captain Brack. Specks of soot were falling through the air, sticking to his sweaty face and arms. “He hasn’t done a damn thing all day.”

Kraft secured half the documents in his field pack, the rest in Schroeder’s. Schroeder was the one with the earplug.

The villagers were still crouching in the ditch, grandfathers tied to one another with strips of torn T-shirt, the women mostly silent, even their crying eerily inaudible. It was like watching the news on television with the sound off. When the muzzles of M-16s occasionally swung toward them, the people looked away. The children’s eyes were huge and black as olives, the eyes of waifs in cheap paintings. Kraft focused against this scene. Nothing. No quivering needle. He was certain they could spend all afternoon here, twisting arms, learning nothing. He might be wrong of course, but that didn’t happen very often. If it had, he doubted he would be here now. Someone called his name. He turned. Captain Brack pointed to a pair of old men squatting on splayed feet amid a restless green forest of American legs.

“Lieutenant Lang caught these two didiing out the back door.”

One man was almost totally bald; the other had a short white goatee. Both had bruises on their cheeks, blood smeared around their mouths and noses. Kraft said something in Vietnamese. The bald one responded.

“Doesn’t know nothing,” Kraft said. “Doesn’t know VC, VC don’t know him.”

“Sheeee-it,” said Lieutenant Lang and spat on the ground.

“What do you think?” asked Captain Brack.

“They’re old and scared and sick. That one looks like he has a tumor on his neck.”

“If they didn’t set that booby trap themselves,” declared Lieutenant Lang, “they sure as shit know who did.” He tugged hard on the goatee. “This one looks like ole Ho Chi Minh himself.” He turned, glaring at Captain Brack. “It’s time we did something.”

Avoiding his gaze, Captain Brack stared intently into the dark jungle. “ ’Bout time for a break,” he said. “Then I’ll call in the choppers for the detainees, got quite a batch for relocation here, and then I’ll call in air to cinder this place, but right now”—he stretched his arms—“I guess I’ll go across to those trees there and rest in the shade for a few minutes, the miles get into these bones awfully easily now.”

Attended by Sarge and the RTO he walked off toward a stand of banana trees.

Lieutenant Lang turned to a PFC who was missing his front teeth. “Morrelli, take these two out into the field. I think they’re gonna require further interrogation.”

Lieutenant Lang studied Kraft. “You want in on this?”

“No thanks,” said Kraft. “I guess I’m gonna sit down on this here anthill or tomb or pile of dung and I’m gonna eat my lunch.”

The lieutenant glared at him and walked away.

Kraft sat down and removed a can of ham and eggs from his pack. Everyone hated ham and eggs, gave ham and eggs away to the Vietnamese kids. Kraft didn’t mind. Ham and eggs or beans and franks or the popular peaches. What did it matter? He was opening the can with one of those damned P-38 openers when someone sat down beside him. A skinny milk-faced kid with brown freckles and bright blue eyes and glasses held together with paper clips. And a rifle with the peace symbol scratched on the stock. And a machete in a leather holster under his left armpit. And a ring in his ear.

“Standard issue?” Kraft asked.

The kid shrugged. “Captain don’t give a shit. He says I’m a good killer.”

Kraft lifted a spoonful of cold eggs to his mouth. He could feel the kid looking him over.

“You’re with the CIA, aren’t you?” asked the kid suddenly.

Kraft continued chewing, then swallowed carefully. “Now that’s the type of question that can have only one answer.”

The kid thought for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “But like I was thinking when I get out I might want a job.”

“Sensible,” said Kraft.

“And like I’ve got all this great experience and I just thought I could be pretty good.”

“At what?”

“Like that intelligence stuff, you know, spying and like killing.”

Kraft laughed.

“Bet the captain would give me a good reference.”

“Tell me.”

“Only one way to swing,” the kid said, patting the leather scabbard.

Kraft eyed the M-16 leaning against the kid’s leg.

“Hell, that they make me carry. Ain’t worth a shit. Fucking toy pop-pop-pop. Might as well be punching metal in Detroit. I hate it. Guns suck, like taking a shower with your shoes on or using a rubber for screwing. Now a blade’s different, a blade’s got soul. Know what I mean?”

Kraft spooned eggs into his mouth.

“Like my daddy’d never go in a restaurant where they had candles on the tables, you know, used to say, ‘I got to see what I’m eating.’ “

A sidelong glance at Kraft.

“I wanna go on Lurps but I think the captain’s saving me for something special.”

Out in the field behind them soldiers milled about the prisoners. The old men sat together on the ground, arms and legs tightly bound with wire. The lieutenant shouted for a few minutes, waving his arms. Kraft turned to see. The soldiers looked as though they were attempting to launch a model plane that wouldn’t start. Then another soldier walked over with packages and several men began tying the packages to the prisoners’ chests. C-4. Kraft turned around again. He had seen this number before. Sometimes, before detonating the explosive, they would place cash bets on which body would jump the furthest.

“So how much experience this blade of yours got?” Kraft asked.

“Five, six if you count the one I finished with the rifle butt.”

“You like your work?”

“I’m the best there is.”

“Why not stay in the army?”

“This war ain’t gonna last forever.”

Kraft chuckled. “But the civilian killing never ends, huh?”

The kid smiled.

Behind them came the shock and echo of a huge explosion. Then another. Gookhoppers.

I dream of becoming evil, dangerous, a hazard to insects, small animals, and children. The sawn rung on the evolutionary ladder. Huge purple velvety leaves, bulging seed pods, slender creepers the texture of human lips, prickly hairs, beaklike thorns. A fortress of botanical nastiness.

I’d occupy a park where I could harass dumb campers, urinating dogs. My behavior would be disappointing. I’d throw needles, I’d splash scent, I would be a blot upon the landscape. A visual, tactile, olfactory blot. An indelible vulgarity.

Impossible to uproot I clutch the planet with tentacles of leather twenty-five feet deep. Chemical spray I suck in like rainwater. At the center of a circular plot of earth, black and sterile from the dripping of my poisons, I sit alone, a hardy simple plant of no economic or decorative value, requiring minimal nutrients, swelling annually into obscene fruit, dispensing allergenic pollens, a growth whose single flower, a white corolla of bloody nectar, blossoms just once a month at night in the dark of the moon.

Laughing loudly, Arden spread wide his arms, measurement of a generosity ample enough to shelter any absurdity. “Marvelous!” he cried. “Absolutely marvelous. Transcendental spleen. I should put you in our advertising.”